Thucydides Reader: Annotated Passages from Books I-VIII of the Histories (Focus Classical Commentary) (Ancient Greek Edition)

On the surface this seems like a great idea: take short passages in Greek from Thucydides massive work and annotate them for the middle or beginner student. In practice it doesn’t work out that well. As a beginner-middle or middle-beginner I find the commentary only partially adequate for some of the very difficult passages presented, such as The Melian dialogue. The cost is also an issue with the Bryn Mawr commentaries [see: Thucydides Book 6 (Bryn Mawr Commentaries, Greek)] much cheaper, and Thucydides: Events at Pylos and Sphacteria by M. Campbell more complete with vocabulary for each section and an extensive discussion of Thucydides’ grammatical eccentricities, which are legendary. Of course you get a greater selection in Blasy’s work, which is nice, but at the expense of clarity and coherence as it is mostly short excerpts.

I am giving this book a three-star rating so that it averages out with the earlier one- and five-star reviews that have preceded it. Having not read the book in its entirety, I cannot give a fair evaluation of its worth, but there IS yet something I can bring to the attention of the potential emptor. I quote below from the work's preface, specifically from page ix ..."Whereas Thucydides has Pericles say (in the Funeral Oration) that Athens is a self-sufficient (...) polis, I cannot make a claim of self-sufficiency for this Reader. It is, on the contrary, designed to be a textbook that calls for the constant input of the instructor. In other words, I did not envision an all-in-one, self-contained, "teach yourself Thucydides" textbook, but I had in mind one where the instructor is continually called upon to provide additional background information, a more thorough historical contextualization, and a more detailed analysis of the syntax..."This page is NOT included in the Look Inside feature of the book, so I had no idea that it was not intended for individuals who, like myself, are interested in something that will provide that "all-in-one" treatment that the author has intentionally avoided. This doesn't mean it's a bad book, but it means that it's the WRONG book for the autodidactic bookshopper who, having purchased, will find himself - as the Chinese would have it - "climbing a tree to find fish". If this isn't what you need, i. e. your instructor hasn't told you to buy it for his/her class, I'd point you elsewhere. But that doesn't mean it should be panned for what it is not.

Nothing to dislike. Excellent method of learning Ancient Greek from selected sections, by which you can learna lot and be ready to read/translate the literature. Get a good dictionary.

On the surface this seems like a great idea: take short passages in Greek from Thucydides massive work and annotate them for the middle or beginner student. In practice it doesn’t work out that well. As a beginner-middle or middle-beginner I find the commentary only partially adequate for some of the very difficult passages presented, such as The Melian dialogue. The cost is also an issue with the Bryn Mawr commentaries [see: Thucydides Book 6 (Bryn Mawr Commentaries, Greek)] much cheaper, and Thucydides: Events at Pylos and Sphacteria by M. Campbell more complete with vocabulary for each section and an extensive discussion of Thucydides’ grammatical eccentricities, which are legendary. Of course you get a greater selection in Blasy’s work, which is nice, but at the expense of clarity and coherence as it is mostly short excerpts.

Thucydides, in my very limited Greek experience, is an author idiosyncratic in his style, difficulties and rewards. For the student of history, political philosophy or Greek prose, Thucydides is a must read. That said, unless one has a staggering command of Greek, tackling a raw passage of Thucydidean Greek can be an especially daunting task.Professor Nagy's reader, the first to cover selections from all eight books with a commentary tailored to the student, is in many ways a "Greatest Hits" collection. The best passages are covered here, the Funeral Oration, the Plague, the Mytilene Debate, the Corcyrean Stasis, the Melian Dialogue, and some of the richest parts of the Sicily books. All are presented with a perceptive commentary that treads a fine line all too often ignored by a modern commentator--gives away just enough help, perhaps even a few "gimmies", and the relevant contextual information, leaving the bulk to the student, providing the maximum benefit to understanding and appreciation.The student seeking a solid commentary that covers more than just one (all to often Book II) of the Histories can do no better than Professor Nagy's reader.

This book is awful; the editor ought to be ashamed. The selections are fine, but the grammatical commentary mystifies me- the editor will often parse verbs for you, and occasionally explain an idiom, but otherwise gives you almost no aids to understand complex Thucydidean syntax (and if you haven't read him yet, well, let me tell you, you'll be hard pressed to come up with a more difficult Greek prose writer). It's unclear for whom this book is intended, for surely a student needing help parsing verb forms must also need a thorough commentary on syntax with frequent references to Smyth. Should you purchase this volume, you will be continually frustrated. If you're just trying to work through Thucydides on your own, I suggest picking up Marchant's commentary on book I, and pick up the basics of Thucydidean syntax there. Classicists need to stop making books like this one- come on, all your technically literate students can find a program to parse impossible verb forms (or we've been diligent enough to actually learn the forms), learn a thing or two from modern language departments and start writing commentaries that treat Greek idiom, syntax and nuance.